Over the next few weeks, a new feature film, Around The Fire, will open in selected cities nationwide. This movie relates the story of a high school student who is introduced to the music and culture of a mythical band patterned after the Grateful Dead. T his film is a poignant, entertaining account that is steeped in real experience not stereotype. It is obvious that the filmmakers are not trying to create a fanciful, stereotyped version of the Deadhead community but that they actually lived the tour life . Their passion and compassion for this extended family shines throughout the film. Of course this is not to say they can't poke fun of themselves, which they do in subtle, surprising ways. Around The Fire is a film well-worth viewing for the story it pre sents, and for its soundtrack as well, which offers cuts from Phish, String Cheese Incident, Vinyl and other notables.

Tommy Rosen, the co-writer, and co-producer of the film, took a few minutes to discuss the making of Around The Fire. The film will be shown at the South By Southwest film festival on Match 17th and then open in Austin a week later. It will screen in Madi son, Wisconsin and Burlington Vermont beginning on April 7th. For more information, visit the movie's web site at http://www.aroundthefire.com.

B-Why did you decide to tell this particular story?

R-My partner and I, John Comerford, we wrote and produced the movie together. We'd both been on tour with the Dead since 1983. Coincidentally, we both went to boarding school at separate places in Connecticut, Choate, and we left both our respective schoo ls on October 15, 1983 and took buses to the Harftord Civic Center to go see our first Dead show. We still didn't know each other though. Eventually we met in college where we put together the fact that not only did we go to the first Dead show at the sa me time and place but he actually had grown up in my apartment building in New York City for the first four years of his life. I had been plaguing him when we got out of college to write a screenplay with me about the characters we'd come across in Gratef ul Dead land and in our travels. Finally, he read a book called the Alchemist. He read it all in a night and called me the next morning to say, "I'm ready to do it, let's write the story."

B- When did the two of you eventually meet?

R- It was either just before or just after the Dead's Red Rocks shows. September 5,6,7, 1985. The first three days of our college career. I should have known right then we were in trouble (laughs).

B- When you started working on the screenplay, what was your intent?

R- We felt compelled to share some of the emotional depth that we'd experienced in the Dead scene and in our lives. Of course we understood that no matter what happened we were going to come up short. You can't capture all the magic, you can't give someo ne the experience of what it was really like to be there. But you can touch on the magic, touch on the beauty, touch on the ugliness and touch on everything that happened. That was really what we wanted to do.

B- What were your big touring years?

R- I saw a number of shows in 84 but I really started plugging in the next year. I did the summer and fall tours in 85.

B- I think 85 is an underappreciated year for the Dead. There are some sloppy nights but there are some real interesting ones too.

R- June 16, 1985 for me was the closest I've ever come to total complete and utter peace. It was the highest day of my life. Everything fell into place, I was eighteen years old, feeling bulletproof, with all of my friends. I had just graduated from high school, and I knew I was going to Boulder which was going to be this great experience, and the Dead were in Berkeley. I had no tickets when I got there, I was standing outside the Greek for hours and hours, and all of a sudden I was given three comp ticke ts, one for each night of the shows. I never heard of anything like this and it totally blew me away. They broke out Cryptical Envelopment which was a tune I had been listening to for months and months sort of lamenting that I would never hear. I just k new it was never going to happen. That whole run of shows was just so believable. SPAC, Hershey Park- with the Comes A Time, I just have so many fond memories.

B- What resistance did you initially experience after you decided to make this film?

R- It was extraordinarily difficult to get through the gauntlet of the Grateful Dead organization. The first thing that happened was they wanted to read the script. That original one was much more directly based upon the Dead. After reading it, they were a little concerned about the emphasis we had on drugs. They wanted to leave that part of their legacy behind, they didn't want to perpetuate it in a film. We weren't trying to advocate drug use or make a film in opposition to it, we just wanted to tell a story about a boy's experience getting into the Dead scene.

B- When was this?

R- Late 1994 or early 1995. We contacted Alan Trist at Ice Nine publishing and told him we were interested in doing this project. Alan's take from the very beginning was to let us know what we were up against. The Grateful Dead was an organization that d idn't take lightly to lending their art to anybody.

B- How long a process was it to complete the final version of the screenplay?

R- To really get the final, final version with full time jobs and each supporting ourselves through other means, it took about a year and a half. To be honest, the script kept on evolving through the shooting of the movie. In April of 96 though, we finish ed up and we thought we had something that was going to specifically reflect the Deadhead's experience. It morphed into something else.

B- How and why did that happen?

R- We got a call one day from the Grateful Dead's attorney. His firm is called Legally Dead, and he said, "We're not going to be able to lend our music to your project." I was in a complete and utter depression for twenty-four hours. But then we decided t o see what we could do artistically without the Dead's music. So what we decided was that the film would take place in the current day where a kid would be turned onto a scene very much like the Dead scene. For all intents and purposes it was the Dead sce ne. But we wouldn't show the band and we would create the story of a boy who struggles with his family and stumbles onto this incredible world that's very much like the scene we love so much. John and I had to see if we could pull it off without the Dead' s music. I think we ended up being able to do so.

B- To me the film is all the more powerful because of it. Of course you still have quite a soundtrack. How hard was it to put together?

R- For us music was the key. For John and I it was the most important art growing up. We wanted to involve the jam band community- and as it turned out we were able to get one Grateful Dead song along with music from String Cheese Incident, Phish, the Met ers, the Neville Brothers and quite a few others. We hired a music supervisor Charles Raggio, and he was the master. He's the one who was able to secure the rights to make the soundtrack as deep and as rich as it is. He sent us the most incredible tapes , and he made it happen. It was difficult but I can remember the day Phish called us to let us know that they were behind us and wanted to give us a song, that was quite a day of celebration for us.

B- Moving on to the story itself, one thing I appreciate is that many of the characters and performances are very understated. They aren't caricatures.

R- We bent over backwards not to go over the top. For instance on the topic of the drugs, we didn't want this to be an anti-drug film but we didn't want to advocate drugs either. We want people to make decisions for themselves based on facts not fear. I personally don't do drugs anymore. I had trouble with them like the character in the movie but some of the most profound moments of my life were spent on LSD. There are dangers inherent but what someone has to develop is self-honesty. So we didn't want t o be over the top. In terms of Deadheads and the Dead scene we didn't want to stereotype and we were real careful about that.

B- How long did it take to cast the film?

R- It took some time. We hired a casting director of Los Angeles who cast all the major roles there. Tara Reid [American Pie] we got right away, she walked into the audition room, and she knocked it out, there wasn't a question. Bill Smitrovich came to us late in the game. The same thing for Devon [Sawa, Idle Hands]. We spent a long time looking at a number of people before we filled his role and I really think its his best performance to date. Colman Domingo, who plays Trace, this was a role very dear to me because the character was based on a friend of mine names Steve Hutchings who actually died of AIDs about a year ago. It was an important role for me, and he did an incredible job, and stole a number of scenes.

B- The score is very impressive too. How did that come about? Bill Frisell plays along with Skerik and others.

R- BC Smith composed the score, and he did an amazing job. Then we assembled a group of musicians and made them listen to al the classics: Cornell 77, GAMH 75, some Fillmore tapes from 71. We then asked them to create something that wasn't the Dead, that was in their own style but was pretty rocking. Bill came in and he was totally excited to take part in the project. He did all the guitar work. Then we had him work together with a couple other musicians including Skerik, and a bunch of guys from the ba nd Critters Buggin. They just nailed it. To watch Bill Frisell lay down the most awesome guitar riffs to our movie and then look up at us and say, "Was that okay?" while we had our jaws on the ground, was quite an amazing thing.

B- Will any of those tunes appear on the soundtrack album?

R- Oh yeah. We're putting four of the score tracks on the soundtrack with all the other stuff. We just signed with Miramar. Not only that but after we screened it for the Dead organization they gave us permission to use a never before used version of "Bro wn Eyed Woman."

B- I'm curious, in some of your show scenes, I recognize people that I've seen at a number of shows over the years. How did you recruit them?

R- We had a hippie herder. We hired a guy named Brad Lyman, who was hired to go out and reach into the community and let people know what we were doing and get them there. We advertised in the San Francisco Chronicle. The first day next to nobody arrived. We were literally pulling people off the streets in Berkeley. One day we needed 300 people and there were like 30 people. We had already provided free food, free camping, free music every night and we had some incredible bands. We had Blew Willie, Zigab oo Modeliste. So we advertised free beer and every alcoholic in San Francisco made their way up to the set of our movie for this free beer. It was a debacle. The police had to come

D- One final question. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the current scene.